1) If I want my boy to respond to me or take direction I call him by his name, Xabi (pronounced JAH-BEE).

2) I named my boy after my favorite soccer player, Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso. but I also am a tennis fan. I support the current number one ranked player, Novak Djokovic. I had contemplated naming my puppy, Novak or Nole, but since it's too close to "no" I went with Xabi. But sometimes I call him "Xabi Djoker" which is half of one and half of the other.

3) I also call him Xabi-bibi, which is a variant from my introductory question when I come home "how's my sweet baby?"

finally,

4) Xabi Alonso also plays for the Spanish national team which is sometimes referred to as "La Furia Roja" which translates to The Red Fury, so I sometimes call my guy "La Furry Roja."

I know it's silly, but someone tell me I'm not alone in crafting goofy nicknames for my pooch after a couple months!

We officially named our shiba "Uzume" (pronounced [Oo-zoo-may]), but we end up calling her Zume most of the time [zoo-mee]. But of course, we've added to the nicknames: Zoomer, Zoom-zoom, Zume Zumerson, McZooms-a-lot. We've also used "Dog" when we are displeased in some way and "Poopy dog" when she smells after rolling in *something* outside. My husband will call her "Satan" partly because of the snarling look she gets when she's on her back and partly because of the YouTube Video of the shiba and the lady who asks, "Where's Satan?" and the dog snarls.

Conker's got a ton of nicknames. A couple of them can't be mentioned here but I'll name the rest.

Conk, Bud, Budders, Buddy, Hey You, Pupper, Dude, Buffy. The last one is due to Conker's very quiet huffing bark. It sounds like he's saying: "Buff, buff." When he does it. Everyone else thinks it's hilarious.

We call Maya: Shao-Ma (Shao means "little" and Ma sounds like "horse" in Chinese), Ma-Shao-Ya (breaking up Maya and putting "little" in the middle), Shao-Ma-Go (Go means "dog" in Chinese), or any combinations of Shao, Ma, Ya, and Go...

We usually only use her nicknames when playing with her or when talking about her. We still use Maya when calling her or giving her commands.Shiba Inu Maya's blog and FB page

We call Yuki the Yuki-nator a lot (like the Terminator or the Baconator). We also call her Queen Shiba, Shiba, Demon Dog, Devil Dog, Yukister, and Baby Shiba. She thinks her name is the sound of treat bag's crinkling. =)

PHEW!!! Thought we were the only completely deranged people who did the crazy name thing :) We tend to call Miki (real name Mikado) a made up name that best suits the occasion.... for example: If he leaves a particularly "smelly" gift by the bushes, he is "Stinky McPoopypants" and due to his excitement upon finding a dead mole/mouse/gremlin? by the side of the road, he is occasionally "Mousy McDeadlick" ... sigh. Help us.

@ Adonia1986
- Hehe, we are almost there...I recently broke my own rule by confessing to Miki that his name means Emperor.. I swore I'd never tell him, lol. I swear we get the "superior" look a little more often these days!

Elwood has a ton of nicknames. My husband jokes that he probably isn't sure which one is actually his name, but he'll respond to all of them. Some of the most common ones we use are Shibs, Shibby, Mr. Shibbleton, Shib-Shib, Buddy, Bud, Fantastic Mr. Fox (since we hear the fox comment daily), Goober, Happiness, Crazy, & "The Mouth".

OMG! Love this thread! We call Nami: Namstee, Namster, Shibster, Shiba, Shiba butt, Namers and Namerses also puppers and pupstee...I also call her sob aka, which means dog in russian and other variations of that....I'm glad we are not the only ones with 100 names for our little devil.

I mostly call him Apollo and "Bubba". He's got a couple nicknames in Chinese too. My mom calls him "pretty boy (liang jai)". As an inside joke, sometimes we call him "pineapple boy" because if you say "Apollo" with a Chinese accent it means pineapple lol.

Toby gets: "dipstick".. because of his tail coloring and that was what my husband wanted to name him, "Grumpy Old Man" .. every night when he herds the kids into bed, "Red Panda" .. my husband thinks when he sits up on his hind legs his face looks like one, I don't see it though.